Deborah Crombie - And Justice There Is None

"Oh, no, no. It's just that I have to go back to the station, and they frown on that sort of thing. No amount of peppermint can get you past our desk sergeant."

"Ah." Bernard seemed mollified. "Bet I could teach you a thing or two."

"Another day?" Gemma awarded him her most winning smile. "Bernard, Constable Talbot said you knew a bit about Otto Popov."

"I might." He looked pointedly at her handbag. "Young Melody said as how you might be inclined to make it worth my while."

Gemma opened her wallet and removed a ten-pound note. Bernard's gaze didn't waver. After a moment she sighed and pulled out another ten. "That's all the department's resources will allow, I'm afraid."

His hand moved and the bills disappeared faster than Gemma's eye could follow. "Right," he said. "I suppose that's enough to be going on with. Now, where were we?" He settled himself more comfortably, cradling his glass. "You want to know about Otto, you have to go back a ways, you have to know how things fit together. You see, I've been round these parts a long time, though I was born in Whitechapel. Jack the Ripper territory, that. Makes yer think, don't it, what with this murder-"

"That's an old chestnut, Bernard. It has nothing to do with this."

"All right, all right, don't get yer dander up." He cackled, then siphoned another inch off his pint.

Gemma sighed again, sure that he meant to get his beer's worth out of this discussion- although how his shriveled little body could hold more than a pint or two, she couldn't imagine.

"So what brought you to Notting Hill?" she asked.

"It was the business, you see. I started out doing little odd jobs for dealers in Bermondsey, and during the course of things I got to know folks in Notting Hill. Now this "- he made an expansive gesture- "was the place to be in the sixties, luv. The antiques trade was just beginning to boom-"

"But we're not talking about the sixties." Gemma was determined to nip extended reminiscence in the bud. "Otto can't have been more than a child."

"Big fer his age, weren't he? Sixteen, seventeen, maybe, old enough to know better. But the point is, luv, that's where it starts. Otto's family was right off the boat from Russia, not a word of English. So they move into a street with some other Russian families, and they keep themselves to themselves. As did the Poles, and the Germans, and the Jews. They all had their own shops, their own cafés, and nobody mixes with anybody else.

"Until the blacks come along, late fifties, early sixties. And all of a sudden the Poles and the Germans and the Russians find something in common, and it's the blacks that nobody else mixes with." He fixed Gemma with beady eyes that were surprisingly sharp and blue. "A combustible situation, you might say. Then along comes young Karl Arrowood-"

"Arrowood? I thought we were talking about Otto."

"I'll be getting to that. Where's yer patience, luv? As I were saying, along comes Karl Arrowood. Now he's a few years older than Otto, an up-and-coming boyo with a finger in more than one pie, and he figures that Otto's Russian relatives maybe have some connections he needs, so he hires him."

"Karl hired Otto?"

"Righto, luv. Not that Karl doesn't have a few connections of his own, mind you, German relatives that just happened to know the whereabouts of objects liberated during the war. Karl puts two and two together and before you know it, he's got a nice little import business going."

"So that's how Karl got started?"

"Also how he made the acquaintance of some less than savory characters, Russian bigwigs, if you know what I mean. Now young Otto- still a kid, really- having been raked over the coals by everyone from his mum and his dad to his aunt Minnie for consorting with a bad boy like Karl, decides he wants no more to do with this business, and disappears from London for a while.

"But Karl, now, he sees this as an act of desertion, and Karl has a memory like a bloody elephant. So years later, when Otto's come back to London and set himself up a nice little business, got married and all, Karl finds a way to make Otto work for him again."

"How?"

"Now, that I couldn't tell you, luv." Bernard finished the last of his pint and wiped his lips. "Thirsty work, all that talking."

Gemma fetched another pint from the bar in record time, sloshing beer as she slid it across the table to him.

"Careful, luv," he admonished her. "Like spilling gold, that is."

"You must have some idea what sort of leverage Karl used on Otto," Gemma prompted him.

"Well, Otto'd gone and made himself vulnerable, hadn't he?"

"His wife, you mean?"

"A pale little thing, Otto's wife, always looked a bit sickly. Didn't surprise me when she snuffed it."

"You're saying Karl had something to do with the death of Otto's wife?"

"Now I wouldn't go that far," Bernard answered cagily, tempting Gemma to throttle him with his greasy tie. "Some sort of illness. Heart, I think they said. But I didn't know the poor mite myself, and I wasn't exactly in Otto's personal confidence."

Gemma glared at him. "I don't believe you, Bernard, and I definitely don't buy that you don't know what happened to Otto's wife. Why won't you tell me?"

Bernard put his finger to the side of his nose, looking for a moment like a wizened Saint Nick. "God didn't miss me when he went to handing out the brains, luv. Now, there's conversation, and then there's stupidity, and I reckon as 'ow I know the difference 'tween the two."

Having had a few things to attend to at the new house, Kincaid decided to stay in Notting Hill and grab a sandwich in the station canteen. As he sat down, he noticed Sergeant Franks at a nearby table. The man nodded at him, his knowing look verging on a sneer, before getting up and leaving the room.

It was obvious from his behavior that Franks was aware of Kincaid's personal relationship with Gemma, causing Kincaid to wonder if there was more to Franks's complaint than she'd let on. But if that were the case, why hadn't she told him?

He debated whether he should have a word with Superintendent Lamb, an old mate of his from police college, but he was concerned that his interference would only make Gemma's situation more difficult in the long term- not to mention the fact that Gemma would kill him if she found out.

He felt frustratingly handicapped, not least by his inability to understand Gemma's emotional swings. There was, for instance, the matter of Cullen's dinner party. After he'd rung and canceled, she had decided she wanted to go after all and had had him call back and accept.

If he failed to understand her reasoning in this or any other matter, how could he predict what would help her to cope? Walking on a minefield would be easier, he sometimes thought. Then he looked up and saw her standing in the doorway, and knew that she was worth whatever it took.

She smiled at him and came across to his table.

"Have a seat," he said. "I got you a prawn mayonnaise in case you hadn't eaten."

Gemma made a face. "I've gone off prawn mayonnaise."

"I thought that was your favorite."

"Last week. But I'll manage, thanks." She opened the plastic container and nibbled at a corner of the sandwich.

"I take it you survived your encounter unscathed?"

"I rather liked him, actually. Though I would send him out to the dry cleaners, clothes and all." She related Bernard's story while she ate, taking an occasional sip of Kincaid's cold tea.

"It sounds as though we've enough now for a useful conversation with Otto Popov," Kincaid remarked as she finished.

"And Karl Arrowood?"

"Otto first. The more pieces we can fill in before we tackle Karl, the better. Russian Mafia?" He raised a dubious eyebrow.

"I assume that's what Bernard meant, cagey old devil. And that would go a ways towards explaining why everyone's so bloody terrified of Karl."